During CNN’s special “The Messy Truth with Van Jones” on Tuesday, CNN Political Commentator and former Obama adviser Van Jones argued that both parties “kind of suck.” And criticized Democrats for the “very obnoxious elitism” that has “found a home” in the Democratic Party.
Jones said, “We are still acting like one side is always right, and the other side is always wrong. One side is grounded in truth and reason and, you know, good common sense, and the other side is insane and delusional, okay? And now, both sides have been guilty of doing this. I’ve been personally guilty of doing this. You have probably been guilty of doing this. But, look, this is America. At some point, we have got to do better, all right?”
He added, “I think both political parties need to take a good, long look in the mirror, because right now, they both kind of suck. Let’s just be honest. Right now, both parties kind of suck. Now, I’ll start with us. Let’s — I’ll start with us. I’m a strong Democrat. At our best, we are the champions of America’s downtrodden, working folks. But it’s also true that some very obnoxious elitism has found a home in our party, and Democrats now have gotten to used to saying stuff like red state voters are stupid, that we don’t even get how stuck up and terrible that sounds to anybody with good sense. And that elitist attitude may have cost us the Rust Belt and this election, okay? That’s got to stop.”
Jones continued, “Now, on the other hand, Republicans, y’all got problems, too. At your best, you are the party of colorblind individual merit, and that sounds great. But, as much as Republicans hate to admit it, some nasty strains of some bigotry and some bias, including some actually scary white supremacists, have found a home in their party, and they don’t seem to want to acknowledge that, or even confront it in a serious way.” He added that wasn’t saying all Democrats or elitsts or all Republicans are bigots, rather that “neither major political party today seems to truly respect all Americans. In fact, both parties seem to disrespect an awful lot of Americans an awful lot of the time.”
Later in the show, Jones said of Democrats, “We claim to be for the working class, but we left out a lot of workers in the Rust Belt, as you saw. we claim to be the party for the next generation, but we offended all those young [Sen.] Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voters, and we never fixed it the right way. And as far as people of color, a lot of black folk don’t feel like we’re getting very much for our votes.”
Jones further stated that by blaming FBI Director James Comey, the Clinton campaign, “didn’t seem to really get the message.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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